Central Bank Chief Eyed for Snowhold Conclave Chair

Four sources close to the Worldly Economy Conclave say the group could name Dame Christine Laguard, warden of the Sembian Mint, as its next chair as early as November. That would mean the central bank chief leaves her post before her term ends. Nothing is signed. The Mint declined to comment, which in my experience is how a Mint confirms things.

The Conclave is the gathering of lords, guildmasters, and one visiting queen that meets every winter in the mountain town of Snowhold to discuss the world over fondue. Its board of 27 trustees meets November 2. Laguard sits on that board. Sources say she has "broad support." Sources also say her election is not certain. I have covered nineteen sieges and have never seen a certain thing described as "broad support."

Laguard is 70. Her term at the Mint runs to October next year. She has said she will stay until then, though she has not said she will stay until October. Parse that as you would an enemy envoy's promise to withdraw by spring.

The real fight is not in Snowhold. It is in Tethyr, where polls suggest the far right could win the next presidential vote. Concord officials want a new Mint warden chosen before that ballot, because haggling over a successor is harder with a hostile banner in the palace. Tension on the Concord's western flank stands at roughly thirty siege-days.

The Mint has a second problem. A board member resigned last month, and the chief economist leaves in May. Ordulin is reportedly drawing up a package deal: three seats, one bargaining table. Two former governors from the Low Marches and the Sunward Hills are the frontrunners for the warden's chair. Tethyr wants the chief economist's post. Dolmen wants to name the replacement for the resigned member, who ran market operations. Everyone wants something. Nobody has offered to pay for it.

I watched the Snowhold crowd at past parleys. Handshakes there are firm, long, and photographed. No hidden dagger detected, though plenty of concealed hedge funds. The Conclave has never won a war, ended a famine, or stopped a Czar. It does keep very good tables near the slopes, and Laguard would hold the chair at the head of them.

For the ordinary borrower, this changes little today. The rate you pay on a barn loan does not care who chairs a mountain retreat. But if the Mint's top seat goes vacant on a timetable set by a Tethyran election, the Concord will have picked its next central banker under a deadline, which is how most wars and most appointments get settled. Nobody won today. Somebody will lose in November.

Ironjaw, filed from the front.